Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Ad Under "M"
BEFORE I ENTERED HIS LIFE, Leonard Bernstein's assistants came and went like the change of seasons in New York. I can only conjecture why none of them stayed long. One assistant showed up for four days and then dropped out of sight. Nobody ever said what scared him off. Another started out energetically, sticking labels on clothes closet shelves — "shirst" remained the butt of jokes for years — but a month later, he was gone. Did he object to the teasing about his dyslexia? One notorious assistant drove the Philharmonic's limo to Georgia, where the FBI apprehended him a few days later. Did he really think a big black car would be inconspicuous? Another assistant quit and tried to return, but in those weeks away, he discovered other priorities: preserving his sanity and pride. I ran into him when I was ready to quit as Bernstein's assistant, and he warned me, "Once you leave, you can't go back." That helped me a lot less than he imagined.
Even more ephemeral were the assistants — if that's what they were — who had hitched a ride on the bandwagon of glamor and fame. They were the perks — often sexual — of notorious celebrity, culled from a salacious entourage. When I'm asked about that category of Bernstein's assistants, I demur. "Hard to say" Actually, I know very well what to say.
I was none of those. Even though I wasn't any more durable physically, I stuck with the position longer than any of my predecessors. Yes, I had to put my life on hold, but working alongside a creative genius gave me the strongest sense of purpose Id ever had. Serving Bernstein's creativity kept music central in my life, and nothing could make me happier than that. And yet I came to the job with almost no knowledge about this famous man, other than his stature as a serious musician, a major orchestral conductor, a famous composer, a maestro.
He had a wife and three kids? He smoked four packs a day? Delivered the celebrated Norton lectures at Harvard in 1973? Couldn't abide elevator music, or champagne, or public transportation? I had no idea. Once I was hired, he let me know what he wanted with no hesitation. "The stereo speakers quit last night," hed say. Or, "Get me tickets to Idomeneo at the Met this Thursday," or "See if Jackie Onassis can come for dinner tonight." Some of Bernstein's directives were blunt and personal, such as "Stop being so distracted." He was the priest in a theology of celebrity, and I was the novice, baptized by fire for four scorching years.
Bernstein's manager, Harry Kraut, hired personal assistants for the Maestro, regularly replenishing what was once referred to as "the toilet paper job." The musician who said that to me meant it to sting. It did. It still does, thirty-five years later. A rude assessment of an assistant's anonymous personality, my personality, as disposable as toilet paper.
After a rapid climb from the Boston Symphony Orchestra's administration, not a bad place to start, Harry Kraut relished the power that came with managing the world's most famous musician, Maestro Leonard Bernstein. Harry sometimes hosted cocktail parties to spot new talent, perhaps an assistant for the Maestro — though some of these parties degenerated into a beauty contest, with the red-haired candidate always crowned the winner. As a Boy Scout, Harry had been so besotted with his red-haired troop leader that he worked his way up to Eagle Scout just to be near the guy. But his troop leader never acknowledged Harry's infatuation, so red hair remained a beacon for the rest of Harry's life, a personal foible Harry confided to me — and the only foible he ever confided to me.
Amidst the gathering of beauties — uh, job candidates — at one of those cocktail parties, someone might show off a few superficial social skills, but any talents that could actually help the Maestro? An in-depth knowledge of notating, editing, or performing music? Never. Still, one candidate usually took charge, answering the door, picking up the phone when it rang, calling a taxi to spirit away an inebriated contender. Harry hired his own assistant this way for the summer of 1982, employing a personable and remarkably resourceful man my own age, whose hair looked a lot more blond than red. So the cocktail party routine worked, once.
Harry also had a more sober and time-honored way to hire an assistant for the Maestro: an ad posted in the classified section of the Sunday New York Times. Under "M" for "Musician," the ad sought an assistant for a "world-class" musician. The applicant must read music, be free to travel, sport a bit of European languages, and possess finely-honed organizational abilities. Nothing more specific.
For two years Id toiled as a menial clerk at the Tams-Witmark Music Library, a music theater agency and rental library in Midtown Manhattan, while I daydreamed about how to put my musical skills — a degree in composition from Carnegie-Mellon University — and my life experiences to better use. Id lived six formative years overseas, when my father's Army career stationed us in Germany and Italy. Germany opened my eyes and ears to music and culture. Italy bestowed its rich history and a sense of life's elusive sweetness. I missed those qualities on our returns to the States. Overseas travel wasn't in my budget, and Id let my German and Italian lapse. But my proficiency at the piano ranged through the Bach-Beethoven-Brahms literature and the shorter works of Chopin. I'd written songs and chamber works and nursed them through performances. Id met many professional performers and a few composers, but now, nearly thirty-one years old, I knew I wasn't a performer, nor was I cut out to be a composer. Filling page after page with my own musical thoughts every day? No thanks.
That Times ad under "M" in September 1981 seemed tailored expressly for me. I photocopied my half-page resume, typed a breezy cover letter, and sent them off, but I continued to sift through the Times' classified section each Sunday, just in case.
Nothing grabbed me like that ad under "M."
It seemed too good to be true when I got a reply and an appointment for an interview. My best friend, John, then an incipient psychiatrist, advised, "Act as though you are already working there. Answer a random question or even jump in on a discussion." I leaned heavily on John for his advice over the years. He possessed social skills more advanced than mine. "Take your personality with you and put it to work," John said.
Mine is a problem-solving mentality. I'm bothered when something is broken — things should function as they were designed. That's how I view an office hierarchy, too. Among close-working colleagues, why not share information?
Immediately after I sat down opposite Harry Kraut's desk, his secretary, Mimsy Gill, burst in with an urgent message from the director of the Hamburg State Opera about the Bernstein, Comden, and Green musical Wonderful Town. Mimsy wasn't sure whether the director's name was Friedrich Gotz or Gotz Friedrich (she got it right the second time). I knew his name because Id come across it where I worked: Tams-Witmark licensed Wonderful Town. I said Id relay the message at work the next day, and thus slipped myself into a new workplace scenario exactly as my friend John had suggested.
That was the start of the interview, but it went on for three more hours. Harry Kraut nonchalantly explained right off that the "world-class" musician in the newspaper ad was Leonard Bernstein. Leonard Bernstein? I combed through the musical part of my brain. At age ten, Id seen a few televised Young People's Concerts while my father was stationed in the States. In college I almost wore out two of Bernstein's New York Philharmonic recordings: Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and the ebullient third symphony of Robert Schumann (the album cover featured a Leonard Bernstein portrait next to a same-size image of the monumental cathedral of Cologne, a pairing that should have told me something). Of Bernstein's own music, I had a hazy familiarity with Chichester Psalms; if you dropped the needle on the LP, I could recognize it. How many snappy twentieth century choral works in Hebrew are there? Of course I knew the Overture to "Candide" — it played over the rolling credits of the late-night Dick Cavett Show. But Id never seen Bernstein perform except on television. I hadn't read a single one of his books, but Id slogged through one by his mentor Aaron Copland. What about the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, which Bernstein the conductor had mortared into the symphonic repertoire? Id heard only one Mahler symphony in performance, not conducted by Bernstein nor awakening me to the Mahler's genius. During the first two movements, Id indulged in a profound snooze.
Id never seen West Side Story, because my mother feared I would mimic those juvenile delinquents. Maybe so, but not for the reasons she thought. When I caught the film some years after working for Bernstein, it was George Chakiris — tall, dark, and handsome Bernardo, captain of the Sharks — who stole my heart. Id have gladly tagged after him into the most degenerate delinquency, a proclivity probably true for thousands of other gay boys in the 1960s. But the Sharks and the Jets didn't interest me all that much. My heroes were the authors of that transcendent work of music theatre. I owned an LP of 1950s Broadway highlights, and the three selections from West Side Story grabbed me with their clever lyrics and punchy Latin rhythms mixed up with 1950s rock-and-roll. The "Jet Song" didn't even sound like show music. It had been pretty nervy of me at age twelve to buy that LP. I usually purchased staid albums by the pianists Brailowsky, Richter, and Rubinstein.
During my job interview, Mr. Kraut spoke persuasively, but his portly appearance put me off. His shirt buttons strained across his midriff. He obviously lived a little too well. A fringe of meticulously trimmed beard edged his bulldog jowls, as if to compensate for his nearly complete baldness. Those peripheral whiskers lent him a late-1800s look, like a New England philosopher. His precise, polysyllabic but leisurely speech put me at ease during the interview, but it also made him sound calculating and slightly pompous.
After Mr. Kraut skimmed over the basic duties of Bernstein's assistant — phones, luggage, mail, appointments — I asked about the schedule for the coming year. He swiveled a bit in his chair and occasionally put a hand to his forehead, as though in his fleshy cranium he could riffle through the files for 1982.
"In March, there are two weeks with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., followed by two weeks with the New York Philharmonic. Then a week in London with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and two weeks of recordings and concerts in Israel with the Israel Philharmonic, taking them on a tour to Mexico and Texas," he said.
Id never been to Mexico or Texas, and Id already lost count of the orchestras. Four?
He continued. "In June, there's a commemorative concert for Igor Stravinsky's centenary with the orchestra of La Scala in Milano."
I knew he meant the opera house in Italy.
"Then a follow-up performance in Venice, and a live broadcast of a Stravinsky program with the National Symphony at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.," he said.
Mentally I tried to add up all those trips across the Atlantic — I'd crossed it only six times in thirty-one years.
"The entire summer is in Los Angeles, to inaugurate the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute. Lenny calls it 'the Tanglewood of the West,'" Mr. Kraut said.
Though I'd never been to western Massachusetts, I knew about Tanglewood, the posh summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Next summer in California? Nice.
He went on. "For Lenny's sixty-fourth birthday in August, there will be a big party in Salzburg. Then he goes to Vienna for two weeks to finish a Brahms cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic, after which he'll take that orchestra on a little tour of Germany."
I gathered that took the schedule up through late September.
"Oh, yes," Mr. Kraut said, almost as an afterthought. "The most important project is a three-part commission for an opera, to be premiered in 1983 at Houston Grand Opera, with performances a year later at La Scala and the Kennedy Center." He looked down as if reading a memo on his desktop. "For the first six weeks of 1982, Mr. Bernstein will be a visiting fellow at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. While there, his only task will be to begin writing the opera." Finally, Mr. Kraut paused and looked at me directly. "The new assistant's principal duty is to ensure that Mr. Bernstein meets the opera commission's deadline: June 17, 1983."
Did I hear a slightly ominous tone in his voice? Maybe I should inscribe that date on a stone and wear it around my neck.
After Mr. Kraut's bravura solo, I took a deep breath. "Mr. Bernstein needs someone with a lot more stamina than I have," I said. High energy wasn't my strong suit, and my thirty-first birthday was only a month away. Whatever youthfulness I still had was ebbing. "Maybe someone half my age?" I ventured, half-jokingly. Id never heard of such an insane workload as that 1982 schedule, but what frame of reference did I have for the agenda of a maestro? Those orchestras were the best in the world; the music-making would be inspired. What other chance would I have to hear the Vienna Philharmonic or work at La Scala? Or to travel again? But I couldn't imagine keeping up with that overloaded schedule.
Mr. Kraut benignly allowed me to talk a little about myself, but I left his office after politely putting my application on hold.
Though I had other interviews that fall, none of them interested me half as much as those three hours with Harry Kraut. Could I keep up with that insane schedule? I wouldn't know unless I tried. In December I called Mimsy Gill and asked her to keep my name in the mix. But I never expected to hear from her or Harry Kraut again.
CHAPTER 2
Indiana Bound
RIGHT AFTER THE NEW YEAR IN 1982, Harry Kraut called me at work, but Tams-Witmark didn't permit personal calls, so I said Id be at his office after 5 P.M. I put on a tie as I walked across Midtown Manhattan for what I thought would be a follow-up interview at the penthouse offices of Amberson Enterprises. (The German word for "amber" is Bernstein, so Bernstein's management office — i.e., the "son of Bernstein"— would be "Amberson." Many people assumed a mystic connection with The Magnificent Ambersons, but no.) Magnificence was in short supply in the Amberson office suite on Sixth Avenue. Once upon a time, Gloria Swanson had resided in that penthouse, but any hint of movie-star glamor evaporated with her departure, leaving a warren of drab rooms.
I heard Harry Kraut talking, evidently on the phone with the student union at the university in Bloomington, Indiana. How absurd that he would arrange for my room in Indiana. As head honcho for Leonard Bernstein, Harry Kraut negotiated contracts with top-tier orchestras and recording companies, not staff hotel rooms. Besides, he hadn't even offered me the job, yet. That phone call had to be a deliberate ploy.
I walked into his office and said lightheartedly, "If you feel I'm up to the job, I'll give it my best."
"I just made your room reservation at Indiana University's student union," Harry said. "You'll fly there with me on Friday."
As I took a seat, I remembered Harry's recitation of the insane schedule for 1982. "Let's make the first six weeks a trial run," I said, figuring I might be able to stick with it that long. "I'll go to Indiana and meet Mr. Bernstein, and on the return to New York, you can decide whether I should continue as the Maestro's assistant."
Harry nodded.
We hadn't discussed a salary until Harry mentioned a figure fifteen percent higher than my current income. Nice, but shouldn't I ask for more? After all, the schedule hed outlined in our first meeting would require more skills and demand a greater commitment than anything Id ever tackled. I paused too long, gulped, and accepted his offer.
I regretted that moment four years later, when the assistant after me craftily commanded a salary that was triple the figure Harry Kraut had offered me. Ouch.
Friends in Brooklyn made me dinner that night and presented me with the most useful tool imaginable: a 1982 datebook, one page for every day. I leafed through the blank pages, an apt analogy to my empty life thus far. How would I ever fill up an entire datebook? My friends had a better grip on the reality ahead than I did.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "On the Road & Off the Record with Leonard Bernstein"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Charlie Harmon.
Excerpted by permission of Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
